344 Dr. Vest on Vestium. [May, 
ration, as the rationale of the process will no doubt immediately 
strike the reader. 
Suppose we have the specific gravity of brass to water as 
8-3958 : 1, the weight of a cubic inch of brass will be found by 
setting down the specific gravity, with two cyphers annexed, 
three times successively under itself, each time writing the first 
figure of the line under the third of the preceding; then adding 
_ them together, thus : 
8395800 
8395800 
8395800 
84805975800 
the product is to be divided by 4, which leaves 21201493950 as 
the figures composing the answer; the common rules for point. 
ing off decimals show us that the decimal places are to be seven; 
the answer will, therefore, be 2120°1493950 gr. It will also be 
perceived that from having the weight of a certain volume of any 
substance given, we may, by multiplying it by four, and employ- 
ing a very easy mental operation, find the specific gravity. 
In the synthesis of water, had the specific gravity of the gases 
and the weight of air been precisely correct, the atom of 
hydrogen would have come out 0°125; as it stands, the differ- 
ence is very little. 
The specific gravities here given, on the authority of Dr. Prout, 
are adopted by Meinecke in his steechiometric table of gravities ; 
indeed the specific gravity of oxygen seems very well established, 
bast 2 just the mean of those found by Saussure and Allen and 
epys. 
Artice III. 
Preparation and Properties of Vestium, a newly discovered Metal, 
By Dr. Von Vest, Professor of Chemistry and Botany at the 
Johanneum, in Gratz.* 
Tue nickel ore of Schladming, in Upper Steiermark, is mixed 
with cobalt pyrites. These pyrites, when we consider the ore 
with relation to the vestium, which it contains, must be consi- 
dered as impurities, and, therefore, carefully separated. It is 
true indeed that the cobalt ore itself contains vestium ; but the 
two metals are very difficultly separated from each other. 
_ The nickel ore is to be pulverized and then fused. This fusion 
is necessary in order to separate the metals from all the earths, 
especially from lime, which otherwise would pass into the solu- 
* Translated from Gilbert's Annalen der Physik, lix. 387; August, 1818. 
